I do not know how long it was before I opened my lips; but for a very long time, I believe, I sat there without uttering a word, and let everything Angulimala had said rise, point by point, before me, and the more I reflected, the more did my wonder grow. For although I had heard many legends of olden times of miracles wrought by the gods, and particularly of the wonderful deeds of Krishna when he sojourned on this earth, yet they all appeared, one with another, trivial when I compared them with what had befallen Angulimala in the forest this day.
And I asked myself now whether that great man who had in a few hours transformed the most brutal of robbers into the gentle being who had just spoken to me—that Perfect One who had so easily and surely tamed the most savage object to be found in the whole realm of nature—whether he was not also able to quiet my troubled and passion-tossed heart, and to banish, by the light of his words, the night-cloud which grief had caused to settle down on it. Or was this mayhap yet more difficult—indeed a problem the solution of which went beyond the powers of even the holiest ascetic?
Almost did I fear that the latter might be the case, but yet I asked where that great ascetic whom he called his Master was to be found, and whether I should be able to visit him.
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